


For the Love of Fusion

by chadleo



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Chrysocolla (Lapidot Fusion), Eventual Lapis Lazuli/Peridot (Steven Universe), F/F, Friends to Lovers, Gem Fusion, Post-Steven Universe: The Movie, Third Wheel/Moral Support Bismuth, lapidot fusion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-10-29 00:09:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20787338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chadleo/pseuds/chadleo
Summary: After two years Little Homeworld has finally been completed. Lapis and Peridot think all their work is done, that nothing is ahead of them until they almost accidentally fuse at a party.Big thanks to cheerkitty1410 for letting me use her fusion for this story!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! This is my first fanfic on ao3, I've been wanting to write Lapidot stuff so I came up with this, I hope I can make this fanfic set itself apart from the other Lapidot fusion fanfics out there. Something to note is that each chapter alternates between Lapis and Peridot's point of view. This is so you can get inside their minds and you don't have too much of one or the other. I plan on going back and editing things up when I have lots of chapters uploaded, I hope you stick around for the story! Kudos are appreciated!

Imagine being in the same ship as someone, using them for interrogation because they're a prisoner. Now imagine that same someone had to deal with living with you and held a grudge against you because of the past. You try to convince them you’re not the same person you were when the two of you last met and you’re better than before. With time and effort, they realize that and become your best friend. Even though you’re best friends the two of you are split apart for what feels like ages and when they come back to you, it’s an absolute miracle. You fight together against what was once feared and now you’re like an inseparable team. That’s essentially what happened to me, and Lapis Lazuli. We’ve come a long way so far and I’m happy to be with her, I can't imagine life without her. Bismuth is a close friend of ours too and the three of us make a perfect crowd. For two solid years, we've been working on a place for gems to live on earth, we called it Little Homeworld. The development of Little Homeworld has been finally completed, and I can’t be any prouder. This was our project, we all did this together and it looks perfect. A celebration is going to be held tonight in honor of this completion. 

“Peridot!” I heard a very familiar voice call my name in the distance, gradually getting closer and I could automatically tell the voice belonged to Lapis Lazuli, it was just so recognizable after hearing it several times throughout my life. She came to me from above the skies with her bright wet aqua wings. When she landed, her wings disappeared as no drops of water fell from the wings one present. I was on the tallest building on Little Homeworld, looking down at the community.

“What’s up Lapis?” I turn around, adjusting my large glasses a little. Lapis’ hair is subtly dancing in the faint wind as she grabs me all of a sudden, I let out a “Hey!” and she jumps off the building, her wings come back out and she’s flying me through Little Homeworld. Not too long after we land and Lapis immediately cover my eyes.

“Lapis, what’s going on?” This was very out of the ordinary for Lapis, but then I realized she was probably trying to show me something. So I played along. I was excited for whatever Lapis was going to show me. Did Pumpkin learn a new trick? What could be so exciting that Lapis has to keep it a surprise? I kept walking as if my body was on autopilot while I kept thinking about all the possible surprises waiting for me. I let out a small giggle. Since I was temporarily blinded, all I could focus on besides my thoughts was the outside sounds, like overhearing the conversations the gems living here were having, and the crunching of grass my feet were making as they made contact with the ground. Finally, Lapis released her hands from my eyes and she let out a “Tada~!” in a sing-song voice.

I rubbed my eyes for a bit, blinking twice and looked up at whatever it was Lapis was trying to present to me. My eyes widened. It was a barn, the barn me and Lapis used to live in. It was everything our barn was but better! It was as if our barn was exactly how it was before we lived in it, although I did like the chaotic mess our old barn was, it had personality to it. This barn was on the edge of Little Homeworld, where the back border of the little city was. I swear the barn was glittering in the beating sunlight, perhaps my eyes were sparkling too because oh my stars, I was in awe. How did I not know about this? I turned over to Lapis who kept the signature chill smile on her face, looking right back at me. 

“I love this Lapis!” I squealed, making her snort and giggle. 

  
  
“You haven’t seen the inside yet!” She’d gently push me towards the barn entrance, taking me inside what was our new home. Immediately, it looked so much bigger on the inside than the outside. I took a few steps onto the solid shining wood floor. I could hear barking in the distance and I knew that bark was…

“Pumpkin!” I cried, the sentient pumpkin ran down the stairs, happily barking at my voice, headbutting me when she saw me. I fell over and laughed. “Hey, buddy!” I pet her softly and I’m filled with joy from seeing the little ball of sunshine. Lapis picked up Pumpkin, there wasn’t much to look at in the large first floor, all that was placed in there was a large flat-screen TV (Ideal for binge-watching Camp Pining Hearts!) and a couch that had footrests. There was a trapdoor on the floor in the right corner of the room. I jumped onto the couch, laying on it and admiring its comfiness for a bit. That was all that occupied the first floor, but that just meant more decorating the place with meep morps! 

“The first floor isn’t very decorated, but that’s because I told Bismuth I’d wanna fill this place with meep morps, as we did with our old barn,” Lapis said, resting her arms on the head of the couch. It’s like she could read my mind! I went upstairs, going ahead of Lapis and pumpkin as they were following me because I was pumped to see what was in store. The second floor had more inside, it was a singular medium-sized room for me and Lapis. My corner of the room has a large pale green beanbag chair, and my favorite Alien plush sat on top of it. I grabbed the Alien and hugged it tightly. It’s one of the favorite things I own and now I have it again! I assumed Lapis won another one at Funland where I obtained it in the first place. The thought that Lapis did that for me made me smile. There was a gray bookshelf with all my favorite books sitting on it, and my beloved tablet stood on the top of it. 

Lapis’ part of the large room was very simplistic, but I quite like it because of how Lapis it was. Speaking of her, she slumped on the plain white hammock hanging on the wall, typical. She did this a lot back at the barn. 

“Don’t start snoring now Lapis!” I said to tease her, she ignored me but I could see her face blush a little making me snicker. Pumpkin quickly jumped in to join her. There were two small separate stacks of reading material next to the hammock. One is a bunch of magazines and another is full of semi-thick comic books. (Lapis keeps telling me it’s something called “shoujo manga”,) Other than that, nothing else was in the room that belonged to Lapis. 

I heard footsteps coming up the stairwell. I look towards it and Bismuth comes in. “Anyone got some room for three?” She’d say, I looked around and realized there was only room for me and Lapis’ stuff. Oops.

“Just kidding, I got my own room in the basement!” Bismuth chuckled. “Be careful if you go down there though, it’s pretty hot.” She told us before heading back downstairs. 

“So what do you think of the new barn? It’s more like a regular house, but I figured the barn aesthetic would feel more like our old home.” Lapis sat up on her hammock, Pumpkin sitting in her lap. She rested her hand on top of Pumpkin and she purred.

“I love it… what got you to do this?” Ever since our old barn was gone, I was living with Steven, mostly just occupying his bathroom playing depressing tunes while I slumped in the bathtub. 

“Well, I did take our barn to the moon, and then threw it at Blue Diamond…” Lapis said awkwardly while scratching the back of her head. “...this was the most I could do as an apology for that.” I immediately jump on Lapis’ hammock and hug her. 

“Hehe, what are friends for?” She’d say, putting an arm around me as if to hug me back, while still holding onto Pumpkin. We would let go of each other after a few seconds, I felt really good after that. Not to say I was in a bad mood beforehand. I hopped off the hammock and then used my metal powers to levitate my tablet to come into my hands. I turned it on to check the time. 4:00 PM. The Little Homeworld completion party was going to start at 6. The party was supposed to be at the center of Little Homeworld and lots of people were coming, even those in the neighboring Beach City. Because of the large number of people, we had lots to prepare. 

“Hey Lapis, let’s head out. The party starts in two hours.” I called, turning off the tablet, and placing it back on the clean gray bookshelf it sat on. My roommate responded with an “Alright,” and she got off her hammock, Pumpkin following her. We headed downstairs, and I ran to the trapdoor leading to the basement where Bismuth spent her time in. I knocked on it and yelled,

“HEY BISMUUUUUTTHHH! WE’RE HEADING OUT TO PREPARE THE PARTYYYYYY!” I yelled because I had to make sure Bismuth could hear me from down there.

“Geez, Peridot you are, LOUD.” I heard Bismuth faintly comment, her footsteps got gradually louder as she reached the trapdoor, it popped open with Bismuth coming out of it. She stretched, Lapis and I could feel the heat without even entering the basement. 

“What do you even have down there that makes the basement so hot?” Lapis asked, pointing down at it. From what we could see through the trapdoor, was dark red, almost black flooring, and maybe some bright orange. 

“It’s my Metal Room,” is what Bismuth called it. “I got what’s essentially a lava bath in there and a bunch of metal. I’m a blacksmith, so I forge stuff down there sometimes. But I also rest in the lava to relax.” She’d further explain, wiping the sweat off of her face.

“Anyway, let’s go! Steven and the others said he was gonna help us with the preparations.” Bismuth pointed to the door, and we headed out. Pumpkin trotted ahead of us with a happy bark. Walking out into the sunlight which was less bright than before but still shining, we all walked our way to the center of Little Homeworld.

There was a decently sized water fountain in the large field, which told us we were where we were supposed to be. 

“Hey, Lapis! Bismuth! Peridot!” Steven called as he rushed towards us. I still can’t believe how much that guy has grown. His voice is deeper, he has a nice choice of new clothes, and he actually has a neck. (I had my suspicions of Steven not having a neck before...) Pearl, Amethyst, and Garnet followed behind him with supplies for the party. I appreciate their participation in helping us out otherwise all this party prep would’ve been absolute hell to complete. 

Garnet bought lots of folding tables, she set them on the ground in a neat stack, Bismuth grabbed two and started to set them down near, but not too close to the fountain. I and Lapis held opposite ends of one of the tables and did the same as Bismuth. I insisted on getting metal tables so I could easily move them around, but Steven said metal tables aren’t exactly ideal and less portable, can you believe this guy?

It was a lot of work and tiring at times but we got it done! There was a lot of balloons, a large dance floor and a stage with a DJ booth to the side. Which was for some human named “Sour Cream” according to Steven. There were also tables we set up earlier which was littered with “food”, I asked about the food because I doubted that anyone would eat it since gems weren’t so accustomed to food yet. But Steven insisted on having it because the food was “one of the wonders of the earth”. I wouldn’t know that though, I can’t shapeshift myself to have a digestive system. 

I checked my tablet, it was 6:00 PM. I took a megaphone resting in Steven’s hands and turned it on, taking a deep breath and yelled into it.

“HEY RESIDENTS OF LITTLE HOMEWORLD! IT’S TIME TO PARTY!” Maybe that wasn’t the most ideal way to announce a party, but it got the job done. Gems popped out of their houses and started cheering. Humans made their way into the entrance too, mostly convinced to come by Steven, they looked less colorful than the overthrowing amount of gems here. Even so, they helped bring life to the party as humans and gems were mingling with each other which unified them.

I had an idea! I was going to ask Lapis to dance with me. It would be so much fun with her! I scanned the area to find her, yelling out “Lapis! Lazuli!” But I couldn’t find her at all in the large crowd.

Where did she go?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with another chapter! I wrote these first two a few weeks ago and decided to get back to them so they can be something that satisfies me. Chapters after the third one may take a while to complete since I usually write them at school and these two were written before I published them. I hope you guys stick around!

I flew away from the crowd, going up on the roof of a house and looked down at the party. I wasn’t expecting twice the population of Little Homeworld to come to this party, much less expecting humans from Beach City to mingle in. It’s not like I was overwhelmed or anything, I just was much more accustomed to being alone or with less than a ton of people. I think back to Peridot and realized I kinda left without saying anything. I hope I didn’t leave her completely alone down there. So I flew down, still midair while looking around for Peridot.

“Lapis! Lazuli!” I hear within the dancing crowd, from up here everyone looks like a bunch of vibrant, different shades of colors mixing. It looks beautiful which causes me to debate if I should go down and join in on the dancing spiral of colors or not. Hesitantly, I lower myself to the ground, my wings disappearing as it happens. Peridot was calling me, so I went down to go find her. 

“Peridot?” I would call back, waiting for a response. Then I see a very familiar tiny green gem that I could recognize in any crowd, even in a crowd of Peridots. There she is.

“THERE you are Lapis! I actually have something to ask you.” Peridot says with a smile on her face.

“What’s up Peridot?” I ask I’m curious as to what she wants. Peridot takes out her hand, I stare at her hand and my mind quickly flashes to back when I help my hand out like Peridot did when I was about to fuse with Jasper. I shiver for a second at the gesture. 

“Wanna dance?” Her smile widens. I let out a sigh of relief, I need to stop connecting the dots too early before the dots completely disconnect with each other once I realize what’s actually happening. I place my hand on Peridot’s and let out a giggle and a snort. We started to move our bodies on the dance floor, our movements in tune with the music. This was fun. I’m having fun. Dancing with Peridot is fun. 

Some band called Sadie Killer and the Suspects was playing as everyone in the city was dancing, I grabbed Peridot’s arm and we started spinning together, she seems surprised at first but quickly joins in. We were laughing with the amount of fun we were having. Our laughter was all I could hear as the sky slowly transitioned from blue and hues of orange and purple, and as all the noiseless cheers erupted from countless gems and humans at this party.

I look at Peridot and admire the wide smile on her face. I couldn’t ask for a friend more fun to be around. I was in the moment, enjoying this like I was having the time of my life. 

But then I noticed something.

Peridot’s gem was glowing, brighter than it’s usual neon green. I could faintly see the glow from my back too. This time the dots in my head were being connected correctly, and I wailed, letting go of Peridot and fell to the floor. My friend panicked.

“Lapis? Lazuli are you okay?” She’d rush down to put her hand on my shoulder. On an impulse, I smacked her hand away from mine.

“Don’t touch me!” I yelled, quickly realizing what I have done, I looked up at Peridot worryingly. I took deep breaths, got up on my own but I could hardly balance. I reached out my hands to clasp into Peridot’s. 

“I’m sorry, but I think done with dancing for now,” My eyes slightly looked away. I could feel a yank, as Peridot dragged me away from the crowd and took me to an empty nearby bench.

“What’s wrong, Lapis?” She asked, looking at me with deep concern in her eyes. I’ve learned to not hide my troubles and feelings from Peridot, so I took another breath and explained.

“When we were dancing, I saw our gems glow and I got scared… we were about to fuse.” I looked down at my own two feet, sadly. My eyes shifted to Peridot, who I could hear a quiet “Oh,” from, even if the loud noise was still ringing in my head. Peridot put her hand on my shoulder and this time I didn’t force her hand off of me. After a few moments of being silent, I got up and told Peridot I would be back shortly. I was going to grab something to eat, hopefully a bite would get me to calm down.

I tried avoiding the dance floor as I walked up to the tables we decorated with various kinds of food. Steven and Garnet were there handing out the food, Steven smiled when he saw me. “Hey Lapis!” he waved.

Garnet’s eyes were hidden behind her golden visor, but I could still sense the fact she was looking at me. “Hello Lapis Lazuli, are you enjoying the party?” She’d ask me in her calm and collected voice, a cool smile formed on her face.

“Umm, yeah it’s going well so far,” I responded nervously, scratching the back of my head. “Anyway, I wanna try some food. What’s the most delicious thing here?” 

“Pearl’s pie is pretty popular amongst the gems, you should try some!” Steven scooped up a slice of pie from the tray it sat on and put it on a plate, handing it to me. 

“Thanks, Steven,” I smiled, took a fork and used it to nab a piece of the pie. I chewed it for a while and it was actually really good. Pearl’s pie apparently wasn’t popular for no reason. “Wow, this is g-” 

“Steven!” I hear Connie yell in the distance, I turn around and see her in a light blue dress, she ran up to him and gave him a big kiss on the cheek which surprised me. All I really knew about Connie was that she was Steven’s close friend and when we were watching over Beach City while the Crystal Gems were in space, we took over as the Crystal Temps together, pretending to be Steven, Amethyst, Pearl, and Garnet. Do close friends kiss each other? Is that a thing humans do? I looked at Garnet and she spoke as if she was reading my mind.

“Connie is Steven’s girlfriend now, isn’t that adorable?” Garnet let out a small smile.

“What’s a girlfriend?” I asked Garnet, since she was the relationship master, being a relationship herself she’d have to know.

“Well, Lapis I'll put it like this, a girlfriend is what is considered to be someone you love very much, someone who consumes your thoughts all the time, who makes you feel funny but in a good way, someone who thinks the same about you too. Someone you do things with such as the kiss Connie just gave Steven earlier.” Garnet explained, looking at the gems that resided in each of her palms, gently clasping them together. I guess that did make sense, I read about those kinds of relationships in the manga back at home, but I could never fully understand them. Especially because this idea of love feels so human. 

“Thanks,” was all I could really say, I watched Steven and Connie drag each other to the dance floor, they looked so in sync with each other. Then they started spinning and laughing, just like me and Peridot earlier, their bodies became a quick flashing light. All of a sudden they fused into someone that looked older than both of them combined. I said nothing as I snagged another slice of pie onto my plate and walked back to Peridot. 

“I’m back like I promised,” I announce to Peridot who’s absent-mindedly staring at the stars. I sat back down on the bench, bringing my plastic plate to Peridot.

“You want some pie?” I asked. She giggled quietly, and I questioned what I said that was so funny.

“I’m sure those taste great Lapis, but I can’t really eat.” Peridot reached her hands out and stared down at them. “I don’t have the power to create a digestive system, so if I ate any of that it would just fall right out of my mouth.” 

“Oh,” I wasn’t sure what else to say so I silently ate my pie. This pie tasted great, I’d have to get some more of it later. My eyes slightly gazed at Peridot, who was still observing the night sky cluttered with stars and Homeworld’s distant galaxy which looked so close yet so far out of reach. As if either of us wanted to go back to that hell, no matter how much it improved over the course of years since Steven got White Diamond on his side. 

“What was your first time fusing like?” I could hear Peridot blurt out, which made me jump and drop my pie on the ground. 

“AAAAAGH NO NO NO! I DIDN’T MEAN TO SAY THAT I’M SORRY!” Peridot shrieked, putting two hands over her mouth. A muffled “You stupid clod! Why did you say that!?” came from her covered mouth quietly. I calmed down a little, taking a deep breath.

“It’s fine Peridot, I guess I should stop being so scared of it by now…” I could still see guilt smeared on Peridot’s face, which was the last thing I wanted. “Besides, I’ve been avoiding the subject maybe a little too long.” A little? I’ve been avoiding it for years! 

“Well, obviously it was awful. But I can’t say I was 100% the victim to it. When the ship we were on crashed into Beach City, I tried to escape and Jasper grabbed me and convinced me to fuse with her. I agreed and as we tried to attack Steven and the others, I used my strength to trap us in the bottom of the ocean. I tortured her and took my anger out on her…” I went on, explaining everything to Peridot, who used to know only the vague details of it. My hands moved in sync with my voice as I told a major part of my life story to Peridot.

Peridot hugged me after I finished. “I’m sorry you had to go through that…” she said sadly as she looked up at me.

“Don't worry, it’s all over now like Steven said: ‘Here we are in the future, and it’s bright!’” I re-sang his song enthusiastically. “Right?” I look at her and giggle-snort, Peridot giggled back.

“Yeah, you’re right Lapis... I hope that fusion doesn’t hurt as much as it did. Not saying you have to fuse or anything- It’s just I think it would be cool if- no I mean that I hope all that turns into a distant memory that you don't have to worry about anymore…” Peridot was constantly mumbling and stumbling upon her words as if she was confusing herself. I smiled and responded with “Yeah, me too.” 

“Let’s get back to the party, the human band is gonna be playing in five,” I say, taking Peridot’s hand as we walked back to the stage. It’s really crowded in the condensed area with a large mixture of humans and gems. We’re constantly bumping into others and have to constantly say “Excuse me,” and “I’m sorry,” I and Peridot get to the front row right next to the stage as three humans and surprisingly Amethyst appear who are all holding what appear to be instruments of some sort. They set up the instruments by plugging them into large black boxes then the smallest of the human bunch leans towards a microphone saying “Testing 1 2,” It doesn’t take long to finish their set up and they soon start the performance.

Amethyst starts to play the drums like it’s nothing, then the tall human with sunglasses starts to put his energy into strumming the guitar.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you…” the short one speaks through the microphone as the crowd starts to cheer, Peridot is doing so as well but it looks like she’s trying to mock the crowd instead of actually cheer. This is our first time experiencing a concert, so it makes sense.

“Thank you for gracing me with your presence!”

“Good afternoon sir,

What can I do sir?

Just say the word, sir,

Anything for you sir…”

“Do you want to dance again?” I ask Peridot again as the band is performing. I have to speak pretty loudly because we’re so close to the stage that the music is taking up 90% of the things we can hear. Peridot lets out an enthusiastic “Yeah!” and we just naturally start moving our bodies to the overflow of music. We’re moving our arms and hips, improvising every move yet doing it so smoothly as if we practiced our dancing countless times. As the song reaches its chorus our backs clash as we look at each other with a smile like we know what we’re doing. We hold our hands together while continuing to dance to the music, which is the only thing we can hear, as the cheers drown out of our hearing.

Neither of us noticed the crowd backing up from us, the band is looking at us intensely as they continue to perform but their focus is towards us rather than their music. Even if we saw the stares, we couldn’t have understood why they were looking at us the way they did. Our gems apparently were glowing, synchronizing is more and more. Both of our bodies turned into complete light but this time I don’t stop it because I don’t notice until the very last second. We open our eyes, staring at each other wide-eyed.

I’m disappearing from the party again, except in a completely different way.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fusion that is depicted in this story is cheerkitty1410's Lapidot fusion! I have to give my thanks to her for letting me use her fusion for this project especially because her version is my favorite of all the Lapidot fusions! Also, I promise this will be the only really short chapter, but if I break that promise feel free to hit me.

I form into existence looking crouched down and huddled up, but quickly I stand up and stretch out my four arms and my four eyes are wide open.

"MY GEM IS ONE THAT WILL PIERCE THE- heavens...?" this was the first thing I yelled as my voice gradually got lower. My multiple eyes look left and right awkwardly, noticing every single stare from all the gems and my ears are ringing with the loud music still booming in my head. I look down at my two sets of mint-colored arms and touch myself all over my face and body, realizing that I'm a fusion.

"H-holy shit Lapis, I'm so sorry..." I whisper in a panic, gripping my cheeks. I look down at the dance floor we were once happily dancing on. But now we were gone, except we weren't? We were right here, with each other but as a completely different person. Several feelings are rushing through my head, the stares that are less than judgemental, though not any more helpful, don't make things better. My lower arms are hugging my waist, the upper set of arms are gripping my hair that's a slightly darker mint than my skin. My water cape floats in the light breeze as I huddle back down, shutting all of my eyes tightly as a small tear comes down my lower left eye.

"I'm sorry..."

Then I become a blinding light, splitting itself into two. I leave the state of existence.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story probably won’t follow the Steven Universe Future canon, whenever those episodes are released. Since Pumpkin is alive and in canon is probably dead but I’m sparing the life of my favorite veggiehead. Enjoy the chapter~

We split into two again, falling onto opposite sides of the floor. My body is aching as I stand up from the hard fall. I then notice Lapis who is groaning and on all fours as she tries to bring herself up. 

We fused, which was something we never should’ve done. I hit myself on the head. What was I thinking? Why didn’t I notice or stop us before it was too late? I want to run back to our barn before I have to see what was probably going to be Lapis’ judgemental stare. Hell, she'd probably hate me after doing that, she clearly doesn’t have a soft spot for fusion and I just brought back a traumatic experience to her, TWICE IN ONE NIGHT! For being a Peridot, I'm really stupid. All of a sudden I’m hesitantly walking over to her, my mind is screaming_ NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO! GO BACK YOU CLOD!_ but my body isn’t listening as if it’s on autopilot. I stand still as I’m in front of Lapis and she’s about to stand up completely straight. I gulp, preparing myself for the worst.

“Peridot, are you okay!?” she asks as she bends down, her hands on my shoulders.

She’s not mad..? Well, of COURSE, she’s not mad, I shouldn’t just forget how close we are now, how everything's changed. Why would she be mad at me for an accident, something we had no idea that we were doing? I happened to be freaking out over nothing. I take a deep breath, calming myself down. Thank the stars it was all in my head. 

“Yeah… I’m okay. Um…” I pause. “What about you?” I look her in the eyes as her deep blue pupils are staring at me.

“I’m… fine too.” She says awkwardly, scratching her head. The crowd was still staring at us which was very uncomfortable for both of us. I take Lapis’ hand and on an impulse, I rush her back to our barn. I look at Lapis and her mouth is slightly open as if she’s trying to say something but she closes her mouth and just follows me. We’re going faster than the wind, which is making our hair blow behind us, it’s not too long until we reach our barn and get inside. We’re panting as we are out of breath, slowly we walk up to our room, I slump on my bean bag chair and Lapis hops onto her hammock.

“Peridot… what… was that…?” Lapis asked in between large, deep breaths. 

“I…” What _was that_? I stammered, mumbled, mixing words together trying to explain myself. “...the party, I just felt so anxious after being fused, and all those people staring felt like it was too much for me, I just wanted to get away from it all...” I was supposed to run away by myself, did I drag Lapis with me because I actually didn’t want to be alone? Her company is definitely something I enjoy, I felt like I needed her to help feel better.

We heard a thud downstairs, then several more, as if the ground was shaking. The thuds made its way onto the stairs and into the room. Those thuds were Bismuth.

“Hey, you guys okay up here? I noticed both of you left and I went looking for you.” She’d ask concerningly, worry written all over her face.

“I guess, I’m tired. I want to take tonight, take the bad parts of it and throw it away.” I'd reply to Bismuth, my voice was all mumbly.

I hugged my legs together on my bean bag chair. Lapis did her signature giggle-snort, a small smile appeared on me but was hidden from my legs covering the lower half of my face.

“Wouldn’t we love to do that with every single day?” Lapis asked us, in an attempt to lighten up the mood. Bismuth snorted and laughed in her hand as a response. Shortly after, a small silence between us followed.

“You guys will be okay if I leave right? I need to get back and wrap up the party.” Bismuth wanted to stay, but with Lapis and I stuck in our room she was the only one who was able to help out with the party we set up. Both of us nod, Bismuth smiled at us before she left…

More silence.

We’re staring at opposite sides of the room walls, not saying anything or moving. It was really awkward. But breaking the tension was difficult. I wanted Lapis here with me to make me feel better but we weren't doing anything. How was this making me feel better? Sitting around, not talking, not even doing anything?

“Did you like being fused?” I say in a low voice in an attempt to break our silence.

“What? Did I like being fused?” Lapis asked herself, seemingly unsure of her answer. “I don’t know Peridot… I mean, it definitely felt better than… the last time that happened but…” Lapis paused, unable to finish. I take a deep breath, breaking her pause with words of my own.

“I was scared, I thought you’d hate me for accidentally fusing with you. I know how awful it must be to-”

“Peridot. Don’t be silly. Why would I hate you for something that wasn’t your fault?” I turn my head as Lapis turned her head to look at me too. Worrying really was completely pointless. 

“I’m… not sure… I mean, you’ve hated me before and the thought of you hating me again…” I pause as I feel a tear stream down my eye. Not now okay? Can my tears come out another time, please? 

“...really hurts,” My voice broke, just a crack but Lapis knows I’m about to cry which feels humiliating, even with my closest friend I'd rather be crying alone. This was my lowest moment yet.

Lapis slipped out of her hammock, walking over to me and she hugs me from behind.

“That’s in the past, I won’t hate you Peridot, not ever.” 

I can feel slight heat rise to my cheeks.


End file.
